Minutes! 4-9-13

Hey kids. Here's what you missed (aside from delicious beer and chips & salsa and bagel chips & hummus and oatmeal cream pies--quite the spread):

• Upcoming literary event #1: Pop Up Book Fair at The Empty Bottle this Sunday, April 14th at 2 p.m. Click on the link for the facebook info--there's a link on their page that will let you get in for free! (But it's only $5 otherwise, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.)
• Upcoming literary event #2: Dollhouse Reading Series on Saturday, April 20th. Get your dose of poetry during National Poetry Month. 
• Upcoming literary event #3: C2E2, the Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo, April 26-28. Lots of interesting panels related to writing, mostly for comics and TV, but they can be applied to other things. Lots of other nerdy goodness. Literary guests include Audrey Niffenegger and R.L. Stine! (My 8-year-old self is freaking out.)
• Upcoming literary event #4: Tuesday Funk. This is a neat little reading series that Becky and Meg discovered, which takes place the first Tuesday of every month at Hop Leaf. Good beer, good fiction. The next one is May 7th. 
• We read a scene from Tanise's screenplay. Discussion ensued.
• Raphael read us a short story in the works. Discussion ensued. (We also discussed how fairy tales have different phrases besides "once upon a time" and "and they lived happily ever after" in other languages!)
• Becky mentioned a website called Duolingo where you can get Rosetta-Stone-style language lessons online FOR FREE! Sounds too good to be true, but it is REAL.
• Becky read a few newer stories from her blog. Discussion ensued. 
• The four of us that were here gave each other an exercise, due at the next meeting, where we will write a short piece based on a famous painting. We've all assigned each other paintings, but if you weren't here and want to participate, contact Becky and she will assign you one. 

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, April 23rd at 7:30 p.m. Becky's place. The usual. See you then!

Minutes! 3-26-13

A lively meeting this evening. Here's what you missed:

• We read Becky's story. Discussion ensued.
• We read more of Tanise's screenplay. Discussion ensued.
• We read a new part of Dan's play. Discussion ensued.
• Raphael asked us lots of questions about death to help him plan one of his plays.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, April 9th at 7:30 p.m. Hopefully it will be warmer then! Submit things.

Minutes! 3-12-13

Here's what you missed:

• We read Raphael's short play "The Door Game." Discussion ensued.
• We read two of Gena's poems. Discussion ensued.
• We read another scene from Tanise's barhopping play. Discussion ensued.
• We discussed an old short story of Becky's that she plans to re-write. 

Overall it was a lively and fruitful meeting. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, March 26th at 7:30 p.m. at Becky's. Submit things! And don't forget, The Dollhouse Reading Series is this Saturday. Anyone want to go?

Next Meeting 3-12-13!

Sorry I've been so terrible at blogging lately. We've had a series of small meetings, canceled meetings, meetings where we didn't talk about writing, etc. Well, my friends, Spring is upon us. Time to get back on track! Our next meeting will be Tuesday, March 12th at 7:30 p.m. It's at Becky's apartment, as usual. Submit stuff. Be there.

In other literary news:

The Creative Chicago Expo is tomorrow and Saturday (March 1-2) at the Chicago Cultural Center. There are panels and speakers related to writing and many other art forms, and it's free. I think I'm going to attend some talks. There are also vendors. Sounds fun.

The next Dollhouse Reading Series is Saturday, March 16th, so keep that in mind if you want to hear some excellent poetry in a random person's house. It's fun.

And...that's all I can think of right now. See you next time!

Minutes! 1-8-13

Hey everyone. Sorry I didn't post for the last meeting. I honestly thought I had. Apparently my brain decided to trick me. Anyway, here are the minutes for this week:

• We read a scene from Tanise's play. Discussion ensued.
• We read a scene from Dan's play. Discussion ensued.
• I brought up an idea for a writing exercise, which is this: in the latest issue of McSweeney's they performed an experiment in translations. They'd give an already published, non-English story to an author who would translate it into English. Then they'd give that author's translation to another author, who would translate it into a different language. Then they'd give that translation to yet another author, who would translate it back into English a second time, and so on. I propose that we do this ourselves, on a much smaller scale. I speak enough French to do this, and I know Felipe speaks fluent Spanish. (Does anyone else speak other languages?) I have a book of flash fiction stories, so let's say I take one and translate it into French. Then I'll email my translation to one of you, and you'll translate it back into English. (If you don't understand French, you can always stick it into google translate to get an idea of what it means and then polish it into better English.) Then you send your translation to Felipe, and he'll translate it into Spanish. And so on. We could do this in the two weeks between our next two meetings, and then we could read them aloud when we're all done to see the differences. Does that sound fun to people? Let me know.
• Our next meeting will be Tuesday, Jan. 22nd at Becky's apartment, 7:30 p.m. See you there!

Minutes! 12-4-12

Another tiny meeting! Just me and Felipe and Raphael. Have people's schedules changed? Would another night of the week work better now? Let me know. Here's what you missed:

• We read a rewrite of Chapter 2 of Becky's novel. Discussion ensued.
• Raphael read some of his automatic writing. Discussion ensued.
• We all wrote little stories based on this prompt: "She has her headphones in." (We tried to ask Lindsey for a prompt, but she had her headphones in. So that's how that happened.)
• There is a Pop-Up Book Fair at the Empty Bottle this Sunday from 2-7 p.m. Who wants to check out some local publishers and go Christmas shopping with me? The event is free with RSVP. Click the link for more info. (I think I already invited you all on Facebook.)
• The next Dollhouse Reading Series is on December 15th. Anyone want to go hear some poetry?
• I thought I mentioned this a million years ago, but apparently I didn't. I am a terrible person. At any rate, our very own Rachel Hinton was published in the Denver Quarterly this year! Congratulate her. For real.
• Our next meeting will be Tuesday, December 18th at 7:30 p.m. at my place. The usual. We can have a little holiday shindig if you'd like. 

And that's about it. See you all soon! 

Minutes! 11-20-12

Sorry for the lack of posts. The last few meetings have sort of failed for various reasons. We had a lovely little meeting tonight, though. Here's what you missed:

• We have a new member, Tanise! (Shame on the rest of you for not showing up to meet her!) (Just kidding.) We read a scene from one of her plays. Discussion ensued.
• We workshopped a new play that Raphael is working on. Discussion ensued.
• We read some of Becky's blog stories. Discussion ensued.
• Tanise mentioned the Stockyards Theatre Project's Play for Keeps program, where women can learn to write plays.
• Raphael mentioned the Mystery Build art contest, which sounds really awesome, even though it has nothing to do with writing. 
• The next Dollhouse Reading Series is Saturday, December 15th. I totally want to go. I don't know about you guys...

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, December 4th at 7:30 p.m. at Becky's. (How is it already December?!) See you then.